The airline offered compensation of about $5,500 for each passenger lost, but that did not appease protesters, who marched through the centre of the city to make their feelings known.

Authorities cordoned off the road leading to the embassy because the relatives of the Chinese passengers said they intended to stage a sit-down protest outside.

Police let the roughly 100 chanting protesters through the cordons, but held the media back. Several people were physically removed from the scene.

The protest ended after a few hours, when police told protesters to get on buses and escorted them away.

The group's unofficial spokesman, Steven Wang, said answers from Malaysia were overdue.

"We want [them to] give us the truth. That's what we want," he said.

The relatives protesting held signs that said: "MH370, don't let us wait too long!" and "1.3 billion people are waiting to greet the plane".

They wore matching T-shirts that said: "Best of luck to MH370, return home safely".

Conditions improve in search zone

Weather conditions have been more favourable today after heavy swells and gale-force winds forced authorities to suspend the search yesterday.

"[We] should see winds and seas ease and really just isolated showers through the area," Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Adam Conroy said.

Twelve aircraft and several ships are involved in today's exercise, with six countries now assisting in the search - Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Japan, China and the Republic of Korea. India has offered to join the mission.

China's polar supply ship and three other Chinese ships are expected to arrive in the search area today.

Authorities are hoping to locate several pieces of suspected debris that were spotted by a surveillance aircraft on Monday.

Northern corridor search 'called off'

Malaysia's acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said yesterday the search had been called off in the northern corridor.

"We have also stopped the search-and-rescue operation in the northern part of the southern corridor, close to Indonesia," Mr Hishammuddin said.

Mr Hishammuddin said the investigation team was working to further narrow the search area using satellite surveillance, radar data and air and surface assets.

He said a black box detector would arrive in Perth today.

"The system will be fitted into the Australian ship, Ocean Shield, which is due to dock in Perth on March 28," Mr Hishammuddin said.

"The Ocean Shield will be fitted with the pinger locator, and [is] due to arrive in the search area on April 5."

'One of the largest maritime surveillance operations in history'

Speaking in Perth, the Vice Chief of the Defence Force, Air Marshall Mark Binskin, reiterated the scale and difficulty of the search.

"We're not searching for a needle in a haystack, we're trying to determine where the haystack is," he said yesterday.

Defence Minister David Johnston said the search was one of the largest maritime surveillance operations in history, but horrendous weather yesterday meant the safety of search teams could not be put at risk.

"Remember, this part of the world, this Southern Ocean, has shipwrecked many, many sailors in our history in Western Australia," he said.

"There are 20-metre to 30-metre waves. It is very, very dangerous, even for big, Panamax class ships."